Eighteen years ago this month, I was sitting for the Bar Exam in New York. I was already barred in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and had been practicing law in New Jersey and Philadelphia for several years, but still, the New York Bar Exam was sitting like a roadblock to my future that February. Or so I thought. I had just taken a new position in the Mass Torts Department of Skadden Arps in New York City. One of the Hiring Partners called me in December 1999 to convey the offer to me while I was sitting in my Newark,…

Linda Mercurio is the Founder of Transformative Impact, a company providing coaching, training, and consulting services to transitioning attorneys. From 2008-2016, Linda served as the Founding Executive Director of the American University Washington College of Law Lawyer Reentry Program - a program she designed and implemented. I've followed with admiration Linda's career path for some time now, and when I reached out recently to tell her so, she sent back a same time photo of her desk with my book, Lawyer Interrupted, atop her own "To Be Read" pile. I love when life sends us those moments of impactful connection. You…

In 2009, I took a one year sabbatical from my 13+ year law career. I turned out the lights in my 42d floor office at 4 Times Square and left. Just a year. Nine years later, I often joke that I’m still on that one year sabbatical. The truth is, I’ve transitioned away from the active practice of law, and nine years has given me a fair perspective to understand how and why that transition has been so successful. In nine years, I’ve worked on the executive team of a pioneering start-up company, negotiated publishing contracts and a literary agency contract, launched…

Very often when a group of writer friends and I get together – either in real life or in the virtual realm, we will share our works-in-progress. Premises, hooks, plot holes and characters are brought to life by their various creators. Most of us will give advice and feedback only when solicited. A few loyal friends will give advice even when it’s not. And occasionally, one writer will make a confession. I hate this process. It’s grueling. I’m miserable. One time, when I heard this familiar lament at a writers’ conference, made by a writer who was frustrated and even…

Since my first novel, Lemongrass Hope, was published in 2014, I’ve had the fabulous fortune of being invited to (read: have lovingly crashed) dozens – maybe even close to a hundred book clubs. When we get to the part where I left my career at Skadden Arps in 2009 for what was supposed to be a one-year sabbatical, but stayed away from the law to keep telling stories, I’m often asked an understandable question – so why don’t you use your legal experience to write legal fiction? My answer has always been simple and true. Because I wasn’t a criminal…

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